


Fallen from grace

by Kokadin (Kondraki)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Crossover, Gen, tagging this vaguely so there's less spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-11-08 04:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17974556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kondraki/pseuds/Kokadin
Summary: Arthur has been missing for a while.Feliciano is tasked with finding him, making sure he's okay, and bringing him back.But he doesn't know that for the time he was gone, he was working on an incredible advancement of magic - a portal between worlds.





	1. Chapter 1

He’d been missing for a while, but his garden was as flourishing as ever.

Feliciano had gotten so caught up admiring each bloom of the shrub that he had nearly forgotten why he came here in the first place – to find Arthur, and why he hadn’t shown up to anything or responded to any messages from his fellow nation-people.

Given how pristine his garden was, the brit wasn’t too far off.

Making his way up the path to the front door, he almost got lost in the immaculate flowers again, but persevered and knocked; just a gentle drumming on the hard wood of the dark door.

…

Nothing.

He knocked a little harder.

 

…

Still no response.

 

Hard enough to make his knuckles hurt this time, he smacked the door, and yelled.

“ENGLAAAA-

The door opened very abruptly, revealing a dishevelled blond mess with eyebrows big enough to match his eyebags. Or the other way around. The eyes between the two stared back wordlessly but still loudly.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“… Uh, hi England.”

The first noise the messy lump made at him was a grunt in the shape of a question. As he begun to comprehend who was there, he looked at the Italian like he was the sun; squinting, unadjusted to the light, and with a unique british confusion of what this was doing here in his sight.

“Soooo… everyone was wondering why you disappeared off the map out of nowhere. And I’m here to see why.” He stared at the usually-green-but-bloodshot-eyes. “… And to help if you need it!” It was pretty obvious that he did need help, but chances were that it wouldn’t be accepted. Trying to get this man to admit he needed help or even had emotions was like trying to make a child eat an entire raw head of lettuce.

“… How long was I gone for?”

“Like a month. America and France pretended to be really happy at first but now America won’t stop worrying and France is just crying because he has no one to insult and to beat him up. Germany tried to comfort him but messed up and now France thinks you ran off to be a prostitute. Germany is actually beginning to believe that too.”

“Well, I’m BUSY. Bugger off.” He tried to close the door, but with the most force he had ever seen the man use, Feli shoved a foot in just before he could.

“You look like you’re starving to death. Being trapped in here with only your food, I would too! That must be horrible! I brought you some snacks for in case this happened!” Arthur didn’t have a chance to take offence to any of that before Feliciano wiggled his way in through the small gap and disappeared into the house like a spider under the floorboards.

 

Inside the actual house was a sharp contrast to the neat beauty of the garden – pieces of paper with varying quality handwriting, ranging from partially legible to inane scrawling, and some questionable red ink that Italy completely missed, thrown around like a madman was on the verge of some big breakthrough on magic. The kitchen was a similar story, but instead tea bags and cups were all strategically littered everywhere. A single pristine kettle, hi-tech enough to come to the boil in record time and even do other temperatures, stood as a lighthouse in the sea of mess that was his house.

Italy braved the fridge. Upon seeing the most questionable meat he had seen in his lifespan spanning centuries, he closed the fridge door.

Merciless to the speed of which he was already cooking using the pans had hadn’t been touched in weeks, England stood and watched uselessly for a second.

 

Maybe while he was distracted, he could go downstairs and finish his work.

He was tantalisingly close to having a functioning portal. It ebbed and flowed with enticing energies, but as of now there was no way to know where he would go or if return was even possible.

 

 

The latter had been disregarded in his plans for quite some time.

A haven, where no one would know who he was.

A haven, where he could be free.

A haven, where he could even dare to have friends.

A haven where no one would ever find him.

But at the entrance to his haven, Feliciano stood oblivious to how close he was to potentially ruining that plan.

 

He silently took off downstairs, covered by the noise of Feli expressing concern intermittently between bubbling and sizzling noises.

Walking through the pitch-black corridor, he begun to take off the full-body robe he had grabbed to answer the door, entering the soft green light from the portal with just his typical mage outfit. Nothing too extravagant, just a method of stitching clothes together he learned centuries ago. Pockets lined every nook and cranny, designed for the discerning mage who needs to carry all the things they need.

The sight of the large circular swirling indent in the floor both calmed and excited him. He was so close. Just a week and he’d have a way to direct the portal to an alleged land of the inverse of the one he lived in. The same in every way, but allegedly opposite nation-people.

He wouldn’t plan on interacting with said nation-people, but the energies of that universe would probably be similar to his current one. And that’s all he needed to direct the portal to somewhere ideal. It already buzzed with links to other worlds with similar magic premises, but to avoid getting cast into some alien world he wanted to be precise. Messing up with portals to other worlds is a very messy mistake.

Various magical items littered the room, some for the portal and others not. Gems, locks of fur, teeth, bones, blood, and even some preserved organs in jars obscured behind the many other items scattered around.

So close he could almost feel the feeling of not caring about his nation life anymore forever.

He sat beside it and muttered a few incantations to keep it stable - it stayed as he left it, pulsing and ready. The dim light felt so bright, an opportunity for freedom as he felt it. So bright, in fact, he barely noticed the sound of footsteps behind him.

 

He watched the glow, satisfied with his incredible work. Being nearly a thousand years old will make you an expert in any field you choose to study for long enough. The ebb and flow of a hole in the very fabric of the universe somehow soothed him, despite its dire connotations.

 

A creak sounded behind him

“Woah! What’s that?”

Oh, how oblivious his fellow nation-people could be.

He yelled a warning, “Don’t come too close!” Even having near a millennium of practise still only made him slightly tempted to just prod the flow of the pulsing heart of the universe. And, as he worried, Italy ignored all common sense.

“This is a very cosy cape! I see why you were wearing this!” the black shawl obscured his whole body, making him a dark fabric blob except for the head poking out the top. Fear built up.

“Stay back!” Again, common sense to Arthur proved to be just myth to Feliciano as he stood before the whirling mystery in the middle of the dark basement.

And, as his worst fears spoke, a hand came from out the dark covers of the cape and reached for the portal.

“ITALY!”

Small zaps of electrical looking green light buzzed between his hand and the to-and-fro of it.

“NO!”

He lurched forward briefly, but to Arthur’s horror his entire hand was submerged; Feli’s face changed once he realised his hand wasn’t coming back out.

“Pull back!” England uselessly commanded. “I AM!” came in response. He leapt towards him to pull him out, but only struggled for a second before they both began sliding forwards and in.

“Help me!” Italy yowled. “I _AM!_ ” England gave a harsh yank to mark his emphasis, but only got them both a couple of inches.

They continued sliding faster.

Feliciano’s screaming was cut off as his head went through, and he tripped.

They were both yanked down and inwards in much the same way that water is ripped down a drain, and the portal closed them in.

 

The clutter of the universe flew past.

Were they falling up or down?

Were up and down even concepts here?

England latched himself to Italy and tried to grab whatever he could to stop them, but his hand passed uselessly through anything. The hole he had torn in the universe was ripping along with them.

There was nothing to do but hold on for dear life as they fell into a new universe, piercing the very fabric of it with their descent.

 

Everything went dark and the void consumed their thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were moving.

Not very fast, but rather bumpy.

For a brief second his eyes fluttered, and seeing the bottom of an average looking horse-pulled wagon made him think it was a regular day for him in the 1400s.

But then he realised his hands were bound.

 

“Hey, you two, you’re finally awake.”

Italy also began to stir, but everything that had just happened came back to England at once and his heart dropped out of his body.

 

“You were both trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am the funniest person on earth
> 
> yes this will be continued
> 
> edit: no it will NOT be at the same pace as WDAS because i would die. what drowns at sea was an idea i had since 2016 fun fact


	2. Chapter 2

They looked at each other.

Arthur’s eyes were full of defeat.

Feliciano’s eyes were full of fear.

“Arthur, where are we?”

He wanted to be honest, but honesty would cause fear.

“Somewhere far away.”

 

The man who woke them cut in again.

“I’m guessing by the magic that you were aiming for the college of Winterhold with that portal, not the southern border. At least, _you_ were,” he ended, nodding to Arthur slightly.

“What?” Feliciano knew a few of those words at least, but not enough to make sense.

“Ha, the loose robe just made me think you’re his apprentice or something. Well, blondie, you planning on teaching magic there or studying? Pretty sure they’re in need of students AND teachers up there anyway. Pretty barren.”

“Shut up back there!” The stern voice of the carriage driver went ignored or unnoticed by the occupants. Someone else butted in, a raggedly-dressed man who was raggedly shaved.

“Damn you stormcloaks to oblivion! Empire was nice and calm until you came along.” Arthur jotted an internal note of ‘damning something to oblivion’ while staring at the approaching village. Feli just trembled awkwardly.

 

 

They had fallen through a hole in everything that exists or will ever exist. They saw unimaginable things, despite not being as insanity-producing as typically thought of, and crash landed. Or, at least Arthur saw these things. Feliciano had just clamped his eyes shut in the logic that if he cannot see danger then there is nothing to worry about. This worked in a sense; Arthur was the only one who worried about what that stuff they had hit out of place on the way down was. Well, he’d find out soon enough.

“What happened? I only remember waking up here in this carriage.” Feli posed an innocent question but Arthur silently fumed over him having no clue on how to not seem suspicious and like you are from another dimension. _Really, he may as well just have started explaining how a phone works,_ Arthur thought. But, much to his relief, the man who was blond but also called him blondie anyway answered happily.

“We heard a weird noise and a crashing sound from outside the barn we were waiting in, and when we came out you two were lying unconscious. When the Imperials came they didn’t care that you didn’t have the uniform and presumed someone else knocked you out, and here you are. They don’t care. They just crammed us all, Ulfric included, into wagons.”

“Wait, that’s- that’s Ulfric there? Ulfric _Stormcloak?_ By the nine, where are they taking us?” The ragged man squirmed, mostly vocally. The man he had gestured to looked unamused. They passed into the village, over-fortified for the small clutter of houses there were.

 

A headsman block, headsman with axe matching, rolled into view from behind a wall like a curtain revealing your wife stood with divorce papers.

So THIS is how the new world was greeting them. He’d had more polite greetings from Alfred. Feliciano, however, was more appropriately concerned. “Arthur! Arthur, do something!”

“Well… some of the stuff I knocked on the fall still feels a little attached to me. I could try and summon whatever I can to avoid this mess.”

“WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”

“ _Yes,_ I _understand,_ just GIVE me a minute.” He focused on something more large he had bumped into that was lost in the currents of time – and with a surprisingly easy tug, it came towards him. The effects of having fallen into this world from an alien one and knocking everything over may have been an accident, but the results were far less messy than expected, like being a bull in a china shop but finding out that your recently divorced wife runs it. If Feli had done the same magic studies Arthur had done, then he’d also be noticing how magic was cocooning the two of them, linking them, and how easily magic seemed to flow to his hands.

 

The link between them…

 

**hey feli can you sense this**

**What? What’s this?**

**i made a link between our minds so we can communicate**

**How will a chat room stop an execution!**

**look it is baby steps. i’m doing what i can, i dragged something through into this universe. it should be here any minute.**

**It needs to be here faster!**

**look it is COMING just give it a second, i can sense it around those mountains over there**

 

 

 

People were ordered to get off the wagons. They anxiously stared at each other while names were listed.

“Who are you?” And, finally, eyes were on the two.

“My- my name-“ “We’re not telling you shit, buddy.” Arthur butted in, hoping to delay enough for whatever it was to arrive.

“Arthur, calm down!”

“You- WOW, I said we weren’t telling them, Feliciano!”

“You just told them MY name!”

“Only because you told them mine,” he lied, supressing an embarrassed blush when he noticed he did in fact say his name. He begged that whatever he dislodged from the currents of time would come soon, now even more so because he wanted this awkward encounter to stop.

Some weird noise that sounded like a bear the size of a small mountain giving birth to an equally large brick came from somewhere distant.

“What was that?” The man with said, as if every person around wasn’t thinking that exact few words.

An agitated older woman butted in. “It’s nothing. We’re taking far too long, hurry it up.”

“Yes, legate.”

 

**Is that help? It doesn’t sound like it.**

**yes and i can sense it coming closer, really fast. i’d be surprised if they even manage to finish the rites before it’s here.**

**Are you SURE that’s HELP?**

**yes, yes.**

He wasn’t sure at all.

 

“Give them their last rites.” Being alive in Henry VIII’s day made this more boring that it was for most. He was looking forward to a presumably whole different speech, though.

“As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the eight divin-“

“For the love of Talos, just SHUT UP and let’s get this over with!” Some angry and greasy looking dude walked straight up to the block, interrupting the speech. Asshole.

“As you wish.”

“My ancestors are smiling at me, imperials. Can you say the same?” His head moved up a little, almost with regret, before the axe split it off. Feli made a squeamish noise and looked away.

The noise grew closer. So close, actually, Arthur was beginning to sense its physical presence.

 

 

**hey please don’t get mad**

**That’s not like you, but don’t blame yourself. He did that willingly. This wasn’t our fault.**

**no that’s not what i mean**

**Oh. Oh no.**

**so i may or may not have been lying. i don’t know what this is. but it’s big and headed our way.**

**And you decide to bring it? Why?**

**look i didn’t exactly have that much choice. if we just use the moment it gets here as a distraction we’ll be sure to get out of here in the chaos**

**But what about everyone else?**

**they’ll  have to fend for themselves. besides, it was native to this world, it can’t be too bad.**

“What in oblivion is THAT?” A senior officer yelled.

“Sentries, what do you see?” The angry woman from before sounded a lot more humbled now.

“Dragon!” A woman behind them yelled. And, sure enough, when they looked up, there was a huge black dragon perched on one of the towers.

_Oh, shit._

**run**

A small flame cut through Arthur’s binds, and he leapt to Feliciano to do the same.

“You DID this?!”

“No, our fall just dislodged something! It would have come anyway! We need to run!”

And, barely aware of what he was doing, he grabbed Feliciano’s hand and sprinted to clutter blocking their way. A brief motion of his free hand and Arthur had a hole big enough for them to get through. Neither noticed the blond man from before calling out to them – but Ralof certainly saw them, and their potential.

The dragon circled over ahead, and before they could round the corner, it ungracefully landed before them. Neither Feli nor Arthur noticed their hands clasp harder together. Feliciano tugged his bellowing cape in.

It spoke.

“You do not look like much. I came here to find what fell through the Aubris at the same moment I did. I sense power, though. Much power... _Zu’u fen koraav, rah-joor._ ”

And again, the dragon took off, not before yoinking a random guard stood on the wall next to them.

“Arthur, what was that last bit?”

“Not sure. Let’s go.”

And with that, they continued into what looked like a structurally alright building, another useless tower.

 

 

“I hope they’re okay.”

Arthur nearly responded with probably not, but tried to supress that rare honesty.

“All we can do is head on.”

“Where to? Where are we? I don’t understand what’s going on, just please explain something!”

“Well, a few months ago I made a breakthrough on magic harmonics between universes, and how-“

“Not that!”

“… Well, when you found me, I was nearly finished with the final touches on the stabilisers between the rifts of various-“

“None of the magic stuff! Just tell me what I need to know!” His force took him a little by surprise, but wasn’t too shocking given the situation.

“Alright. Everything you need to know. I was making a portal, to another world. I wasn’t sure where, and when you arrived I was nearly finishing on where it would send me, and make sure that I landed somewhere with similar magical energies, so I wouldn’t be completely lost. You tripped into it before I finished up directing it so that it would be stable. That meant out crash landing was a little… messy. We’re both covered in the fabric of the universe, basically.”

“Okay. I’m sorry for falling in your portal.”

“Accidents happen.” If this was anyone else he would have snapped and probably punched them for doing this, but his brown eyes were just too soft to be angry at.

“What was your plan for coming back?”

“There was none. Let’s go down, that magic college the man talked about might be out best option.”

 

Feliciano stopped for a second, thinking of that first part.

He was rather rudely interrupted by someone yelling.

“Come on soldiers, move!”

“Feli, get back, I’ve got this.”

He stood back, and the three soldiers entered the room. He stood so far back he startled himself with the wall.

Then there was what sounded like lightning landing right next to him.

He opened his eyes.

Arthur stood in the middle of the room, sparking slightly as he held his hands out.

All three bodies lay toasted on the floor. And not just lightly browned butter side up, like pieces of bread that got stuck in a toaster when it caught on fire. Even the metal of their armour and swords were charred slightly.

“Well, I didn’t expect it to do THAT much.” Feli stared back dumbfounded. The clattering of distant swords went nearly unnoticed. Out of the time of being centuries old, neither of them had ever done anything like this before.

Except Arthur had, a bit; one time he got drunk and designed a portal to an internationally broadcasted government meeting of an alien race on some random planet about 7 million light years away and also sixty-nine million years in the past, because he thought that would be funny. They were thoroughly confused, and chaos ensued, but he woke up the next day with any memories of that gone and a very bad hangover. Little did he know that they had documented all of this, and their society and religion held his unsober ramblings at the centre. They had finally mastered travel enough to visit earth and find their god, but arrived far too early and just left messages for him in the form of their species’ bones all across the globe. Nothing actually had a skeleton before only a handful of million years ago, and this misconception was all because of a night he decided to try mixing weed, alcohol, his favourite chamomile tea, and meth.

And now, a reluctant protégé in tow, he was ready to mess up another world – and their religious beliefs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, i hate to be one of Those People but comments and stuff are really appreciated! sometimes i dont even know how to respond because i am easily flustered but i can assure you every comment is loved


	3. Chapter 3

For a stone-made and draughty building, it was surprisingly damp. Moss had taken over the corners and established a small ecosystem. A few insects climbed back into their holes as Arthur marched down the winding stairs, Feli nearly tripping over his robe in tow. He wanted to abandon the robe for better movement, but with his clothes he may as well have just yelled “I’m from the future!” for a similar effect. Also, it was Arthur’s robe, not his. He lifted it off the floor to avoid getting it much more dirty, even though it was already filthy.

 

Arthur made an undignified yelp as rocks fell in front of him, blocking a passage. Despite having previously refused to hold his hand anymore from fear of the static, Feli leapt onto him for comfort, nearly tripping Arthur – but he stumbled, and nearly tripped again. Once the noise died down he climbed off, and Arthur reached for the door.

“Wait! Weren’t there other people down there?” Feli stated, not really wanting to risk that lighting stuff again.

“Hmm… There were, so I should just walk in and do the zappy thing again. Stay here.”

“No, we don’t need to kill them, can’t you do something else?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll try something new.” A worrying red glow emitted from Arthur’s hands. Before he had a say in the matter, he opened the door and shot a red bolt from each hand.

The sound of swords being placed in sheathes was a very welcome sound.

 

“What did you do?” Feliciano asked, light glimmering in his eyes.

“A simple pacify spell. They’ll just think anyone is a friend. Thought you’d like that.”

“That’s so cool! Can you show me how to do that sometime?” Arthur quickly turned away so his blush wouldn’t be noticed. “Sure, just when we’re out of here. You should have the latent universe-fuckery I got from the fall, so it’ll be easier to learn for you than most.” A smooth, factual rebuttal contrasted with his unseen red face, and they walked right up to the two guards. The larger and burly one looked at them with wide eyes.

“Hail, friend! Keeping well?”  
“Not so well. Wrong universe and all.”   
“Arthur! Don’t just tell them that!”  
“They won’t remember any of this.” And to mark his point, the guard who asked how they were simply smiled dozily, like a toddler on heroin.

As the protagonists left them in their happy daze, they got a “So long!” and a chipper “Get the correct ‘universe’ soon!” How nice.

 

They arrived to the chamber a little late. Two stormcloaks sat near each other, backs on the wall, bleeding profusely. One stammered something about ‘stupid mages’ and he slid down the wall, now dead. The other looked at them. Her brown hair was down to her waist, her eyes were a matching colour, and her face was twisted into something between ‘smelling cat shit’ and ‘my femur is broken’. Arthur decided to be chivalrous, and a pale orange welled from his hands.

“Here, let me help.”

Unexpectedly, in a similar accent, she rebutted ‘no, I got this, give me a second’ and the same colour light welled from her free hand that wasn’t holding her organs in. The holes began to close, but she was only a little of the way through before grunting and stopping.

“Nevermind. I tried. Please help.”

Arthur reached for her with the light, and she was cased in it, all holes and misdirected limbs suddenly healed. “That was a good effort. You focused on your hand too much, though.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks. I’ll need it. Here, for your troubles, let me grab that gold in there for you.”  
“Ah, thank you.” “Thank you!” Feli also chimed in. She fiddled with the lock, forced a little rust aside, and grabbed the potion, book, and gold.  
“For you. I think I’m going to be having those clothes though, if you don’t mind. You can have the hood if you want. You could sell it and make a pretty penny. Hoods aren’t my thing.” Arthur looked at her, concerned but mainly confused.

“Ditching the armour?  
“Yes. Fed up of this, and it’s not like I need to be a stormcloak anymore.”  
“You’re sure? Your superiors won’t agree.”  
“My only superior just died.” She vaguely waved at the rude corpse in between getting the armour off. “I live in Windhelm. Being the stormcloak capital, he was my landlord and also a stormcloak. One day I said I didn’t have rent, he said he would let me not pay rent if I simply joined his fights. By that he meant be his human flesh shield. I hardly had a choice, but he smuggled me some armour and dragged me along. Not paying rent was good though.” Feliciano looked away from her as she began putting on the mage robes, but Arthur kept eye contact. “Now he’s gone, there’s no reason to participate in any of this civil war for me. There’s hardly official documentation to say I am a stormcloak, so I think I’ll just go back to living my own life. Been thinking of moving to the mage’s college. It’s free rent to sleep on college grounds, I can make a penny enchanting things, and I’m still going to pursue the magics, even if my ex-landlord hated mages.”

“The college, you say?” Her shirt was long on, but Feli only just mustered the courage to look while Arthur carried on conversation.  
“Yeah. You seem like you’re going there. And judging by how fast you healed me, not as a pupil.” She waved her arm in the general direction of Feliciano. “He’s your apprentice then, I’m guessing?”  
“Yes.” Feliciano had asked to be taught some magic, so he wasn’t completely lying, but it also made for a good cover story that _didn’t_ involve being from a different universe.

Some clattering and yelling sounded from a distance away.

Feli spoke, in a hushed and worried tone. “We should get out of here.” The other two muttered an agreement, and they walked together down the other end of the apparent torture chamber.

“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Feliciano but you can call me Feli, and this is Arthur!”  
“Ah, nice to meet you both, I’m Lucien. I know it’s a masculine name, but apparently I’m named after an assassin who was my father’s father’s father, or something like that. Don’t know why anyone would name their child after a family assassin, but it’s a good name.”  
“An assassin? Interesting.” Arthur found this far more fascinating than Feli, apparently.  
“Yeah. Dark brotherhood or something equally shady.”

 

 

 

After a certain while of walking and Arthur grabbing every bag of money and penny he could see, they heard some talking from around a corner.

“Orders are to wait here ‘til general Tullius arrives.”  
“I’m not waiting around to be killed by a dragon!” Despite saying this, the voice didn’t interject anymore, and they didn’t hear anyone leaving.

Arthur snuck up to a corner and peered around. A gathering of imperials sat around, moping in nothingness, some poking a rock or two into the stream that flowed through the room. Feliciano whispered to the both of them.

“We should just walk through, like nothing’s happening. I’m sure if they think we aren’t an enemy, they won’t exactly kill innocents.”  
Arthur looked to Lucien and whispered also. “Your thoughts? Given they might recognise you from fighting you previously.”  
“I always wore a helmet. Hated the things. But no one will know my face, trust me.”  
“Alright then.” And on that note, Arthur stood up straight and turned around the corner.  
**i have a back up plan.  
Alright. Please don’t kill them.**

Walking into plain sight, he approached a generic looking soldier with a sword hung on his back.

“Hello. We’re looking for an exit, so we’d like to-“  
“HEY! That was one of the prisoners!” Crap. Feli and Lucien had not rounded the corner yet. They heard some yelling, saw some red glowing, and felt a magic bomb tear through the whole room.

“Arthur?” Feli poked his head out.

Just like before, the guards were all moping around, staring at walls like they were paintings, and looking generally like a heroin den.

“We’re sorted.”

 

Some banter and wandering through a cave later, they sat down. Not out of tiredness, since the walk hadn’t been far at all, but all three of them felt a little worn down from what had happened today.

 

 

Ralof stumbled his way through, bewildered as the imperials just waved at him. Whatever was further down this tunnel was a force to be reckoned with, he thought, as another imperial said they liked his hair.  
“Long and blond! Long and blond! How nice. I like hair.”  
He had his full stormcloak armour on, yet they just ambled around like they were toddlers.  
As a fully grown man said how nice the blue he was wearing matched his eyes and went back to staring at a wall, Ralof told himself he would find out whatever was going on.

 

“So, we’re about to get executed, but then a _dragon_ turns up! It was the noise from before!” The culture in Italy involved many arm movements while talking, but neither british nor nord were accustomed. They leaned back a little. “And somehow, Arthur just appears behind me, and undoes my cuffs! I mean, I know they were rope and all, but it’s still impressive how he got out of them so easily!” Arthur blushed.

 

He continued on, growing more and more anxious as he progressed, wondering what the third group of apparently drugged up imperials would be doing when he got there. A dragon attacks, and someone makes all the opposition into bumbling madmen? Just what was he dealing with?

 

“And, again, he just begins charging up, and suddenly, BOOM! All of them are pacified!”  
“I was there to see him do that, you know.”  
“Oh. Oh yeah.”

 

He heard distant talking. Not soft and loose, like how the imperials all were, but lucid. Whatever was around this corner would be the most terrifying person he would ever see.

 

“And, I’m still eating my sweetroll, there’s a troll banging on the door of the cottage, and he is STILL unconscious! And what happens next? Well, me, being a young girl, I hide away in a wardrobe! But then I hear the WEIRDEST sound. Like a mudcrab being sent through a sawmill. And when I look out? It turns out HE was the wind-hunter the whole time!” Arthur and Feli shared a shocked reaction, staring at her and then each other, still hung on the last sentence.

“Hey! Who- who did all of that to the soldiers back there?” Ralof butted in, rudely in the context but understandable to anyone else.

They both pointed at Arthur.  
“Well, they were going to kill us. So now they’ll spend a day, maybe two, just not killing people.”

_The same man trapped in the cart with him as before_ , they both thought.  
_How on earth did this guy GET here?,_ they both thought.  
_And why did he call me blond when we’re both blond anyway?,_ Arthur thought.

Ralof opened his mouth to break the silence, but Arthur beat him to the social punch.  
“Are you looking for they way out, like us?” Ralof paused.  
“Yes.”  
“Well, come along with us. We needed to get moving anyway, this cave isn’t the nicest place to sit.”

Ralof didn’t understand magic, so following the logic of most nords, this meant he didn’t like it. But siding against these people seemed like the wrong idea, so he reluctantly walked towards them.  
“Alright then. I’m not enjoying this cave either, let’s get out of here.”

 

 

**these look like something from australia’s place**

**Well, do something about them! Ralof only has a sword! Zap them or something, just looking at them is making me uncomfortable!**

No one else heard this dialogue, but it was the final nail in the coffin of convincing Arthur to face the spiders.

“Alright.” The single word brought incredible joy to the three people watching. “Stay back. This might get messy.”

They had been arguing for a while about how to deal with these things, and despite everyone clamouring to shift the burden to someone else, no one had yet suggested that Feli do this – his small shape cowering in a corner just made them feel bad for even suggesting it, so it was the other three yell-whispering at each other. Arthur felt the same way Feliciano did, but he’d be damned if anyone saw him display any signs of weakness. He motioned them to go back, and when they went back, he insistently kept waving them back. It seemed a little overkill, but he was the one about to take on the spiders, so they obeyed until they were all ridiculously far back.

He took a step.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

The steps were noticeably slowing down.

“Just do it, Arthur!”  
“If you’re that eager, then YOU do it!”

And another.

And another.

And, you’ll never guess,

Another.

 

Most of them were asleep, or doing something at the sacs that littered the room. The familiar sparking begun, and only one spider seemed to notice.

Then, he seemed to change his mind, and the sparks turned to flame. The flames grew, and grew, and begun to envelop him, and the spiders around the room all begun to stir and look at him.

He then, contrary to how he spoke about this earlier, sprinted into the centre of the room.

 

When a huge burst of fire nearly set Ralof’s hair alight, despite being down the cave, they understood why he had motioned them to step back. It wasn’t as loud as expected, but they had just heard the roaring of a dragon earlier, so that was a hard hurdle to clear. If he wanted to, he could’ve deafened them instead, but he chose to toast the spiders instead because he still had a little sanity in there.

 

“Are they gone?” Lucien piped up, a little strained and stressed from poking her head from the corner where she had seen fire pour out of.  
“Yes, they’re bloody gone, let’s hurry. It’s too hot in here now.” The ground around him simmered.

As the other three entered the large part of the cave, they saw it was, in fact, large, and also charred in every single corner. A few corpses and sacs had a flame in them still, and every single surface facing where he stood was covered in scorch marks. The backs of some rocks and surfaces out of a direct path of the explosion were w

arm and a little too hot to the touch, but not as scorched.

They kept their path, going strong and all eager to not be near the spider den. Also because they hated the cave, but really, they all just wanted to avoid more of the spiders.

 

 

Being the most reluctant member of the party, no one really expected Ralof to say anything, but he did anyway, in a hushed but strained tone.   
“Hold up! There’s a bear over there. We could try and sneak past. Or, if you’re feeling lucky, you can borrow this bow and the arrows I found.”  
Feliciano was the first to chime in, albeit very quietly. “We should just sneak past, it hasn’t done anything wrong.” Lucien, however, really disagreed with this notion. “No, there’s four of us, it’ll notice! Besides, we could sell the pelt when we’re out of here.”

Arthur nodded once. “That seems like a good idea.” Ralof tried to hand him the bow and arrows, but he shoved the back. “Won’t need those. Watch this.” Almost loud enough to wake the bear, Lucien butted in. “Woah, woah, if you fry it then no one will want the pelt!”

A pale blue light poured to his hand. “I won’t fry it, then.”

Everyone looking at him with varying levels of confusion, worry, and admiration, he raised his hand a little. Arthur squinted with all his eyebrows, and a bolt of ice shot towards the bear.

 

It sailed a metre over its head.

 

“Crap.”

As it stood up on its back legs, the bear roared and looked over to the offending party.

“Do something!” Feli panicked. Arthur charged another bolt. “I am!”

He missed again, dislodging some rocks behind it. The bear took considerable offence to someone trying to kill it not once but twice. And, as bears do when someone is trying to turn them into an ice kebab, it began running over.

Everyone but Arthur screamed to varying degrees, who was too focused on charging another bolt again to yell. The roar was cut off abruptly, as death does to a bear, and the force of the ice spike sent it back to the wall, where it hit a few more rocks. Debris stopped falling onto it and the gang all breathed again. The spike sat lodged in the ribcage of the bear.

“Next time, try missing a few more times so it has time to come over and kill us!” Lucien looked at Ralof confused for a second but then processed the sarcasm, and murmured in agreement.

“Hey, he did his best!” “Thank you, Feliciano.”

 

 

 

Bear pelt slung over his shoulder, he was walking at the front again, since he had become the party’s fighter. Not by choice, but by everyone pointing out how he was an absolute weapon and being pushed there.

“Hey, I think the cave ends here.” Everyone behind Arthur was suddenly less focused on staying behind him, for some reason, and jogged up ahead. Feli didn’t jog, but rather sprinted, showing the others just how fast he could run.

 

“No sign of any dragon. It probably flew off. But I’m not waiting around to find out.” Ralof stated something a little too obvious, so Arthur rebutted. “Really? I thought I’d go ahead and take a kip right here on the floor and go dragon-spotting.”

Ignoring his immense sarcasm, Ralof continued. “It’s probably best if we split up. I’m going down to Riverwood, just down the road there. My sister runs the mill. If you three find yourself going there, she’ll be more than happy to help out. I probably wouldn’t have made it today if it wasn’t for you. Good luck out there.” And on that note, he began his way down the road.

It was just the three of them now.

“We should probably go down to Riverwood, see if we can sell this. And see if we can get you something a little easier to wear, Feli.” With Lucien there, he couldn’t just flat out say that he needed to change out of his modern clothes so no one would think he’s an alien or something. But he got the subtext, and nodded.

“Hey, if you two are still off to the college, mind if I tag along? You don’t seem like Skyrim natives, and my home is on the way to the college. And there’s safety in numbers. I don’t think I’ll be following you all the way, though, I still need to gather and sort my things.”

Before Arthur had a chance to politely say fuck off, Feliciano bursted in. “Of course! We’ll totally need a guide! And having friends around makes travels more fun.” “Great, let’s get some better gear at Riverwood first, though. Neither of you have great travelling boots, and I doubt you want to carry that bear skin all the way.”

 

With another member of the group, they began the walk to the town. Whatever this wold had in store for them, they were overly optimistic about being ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i said id slow down the writing but im harnessing these energies as they come and i think my antidepressants being upped has made me into a person who can do things now. we'll see how this goes


	4. Chapter 4

“And just how do you plan to avoid this again?” Rikke’s voice bounced coldly off the castle dour walls.  
“Look, no one knows what happened. The only thing they all remember is being attacked by a dragon, and next thing we know, we find them all staggering around under the most powerful spell that our mage has ever seen! I’d like to know what you plan to do to ‘avoid this.’”  
“Just interrupt whatever is giving the stormcloaks the magic required! They’re all too stupid to master something like that themselves, so obviously they’re hiring someone to do it _for_ them! Maybe someone up in winterhold has some connections to the stormcloaks, business or otherwise.”

Rikke was tired in her voice, but persistent; however, her usual politeness to her superior seemed to be wearing thin right now. Tullius didn’t mind – or even notice – given how strange and stressful this whole thing was. A few of his men were lucid and mostly making up for how little they had eaten or slept. The rest were still under a bubbly haze, and men not involved found it to be hilarious blackmail material at first. Now it was worrying, as some of their peers didn’t seem like they’d ever snap out of it.

The mage, fresh from teaching back in the imperial city itself of Cyrodiil, had been offered a portly sum of money to diagnose what was going on. He assured them that it would wear off, being temporary in nature, but also that it was too strong to manually remove from their minds. Hearing the way he said it was the strongest calm spell he had ever seen even made Tullius break into a cold sweat, and now he sat arguing about how to not have this happen again.

“For the last time, it wasn’t some stormcloak. They wouldn’t have been left alive. You really think Ulfric or his thugs are above killing them in _that_ state?” Tullius pointed at an empty hallway that drunk-seeming laughter drifted from.   
“They left them all like that to send a message, probably!”  
“You seem to be forgetting that a literal dragon was there. You saw it with your own eyes. I don’t know what, but you cannot convince me that Ulfric has pulled Tamriel’s most powerful mage into his little coup. He was about to be executed. Whatever happened has something to do with the dragon.”  
“I suppose you’re right.” Rikke humbly put aside her anger for a second to think about just what they were dealing with.

“Oh. Oh my gods, Rikke, you remember the moment people heard the dragon talk?” His voice had picked up speed, fretting from a sudden realisation.

“Uh- yes?”

“Didn’t the dragon land in front of one of the prisoners in the mage robe?”

They both paled at this realisation.

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur was fast asleep face down at the tavern table, drooling a little onto a history book. He didn’t have enough to get fully drunk, but enough to make him a little off, so he wasn’t about to wake up.

“Hey, your friend that was stubborn about staying up and working finally passed out.”  
“Oh, thank you for telling me Delphine! Could you help me put him in the bed?” Feliciano had already learned the names of half the population of Riverwood. And all of them knew him.  
“Sure. You seem very determined to look after this man.” She grabbed the blond from behind and under the arms, leaned him into herself, and lifted him off the bench.  
“Arthur doesn’t really look after himself. That’s why he’s a little crabby.”

They gently lowered him onto the bed they bought for the night (which was at half price once Delphine had a conversation with Feli and decided he was nice).  
“He seemed very engrossed with his work,” she remarked.  
“Yeah, I’m hoping he’s going to teach me some more tomorrow though!”  
“Anything in particular in history or just general history?”  
“Just everything.”  
“Hmm… With the rumours of dragons, I’ve been… looking around too. If you think I can trust him, then he’s free to collaborate with me on what little information still knocks about.”  
“I’ll ask him!”

 

With the new day, and a staggeringly clear head, Arthur sat in the sunlight on the wide base of a tree that had been cut down years ago on the island in the middle of the river. From Feliciano’s point of view, he was unlocking secrets of the universe, marching into bold territory on par with quantum physics. From Arthur’s point of view, this was far less impressive, and more like a child learning what letters sound like. Feli shot off a red bolt far too hard, pushing him back and on the ground, and making a huge splash a little upriver.

“You’re focusing too much on the force and direction behind it and not enough on what you’re casting.”  
“But earlier you said I wasn’t focusing enough on it!”  
“And now you’re focusing far too much on it. Use a little moderation.” Feliciano huffed a little but obeyed, charging up more red haze in his hands.

A few more mediocre bolts shot off with varying speed and direction.

“You’re getting closer.”  
“This is going to take foreveeeerrrr!”  
“It’ll take a while. But you’re doing well.”

Feliciano went back to sitting on a log while he messed with the power.

“You should do something. It seems boring just sitting there and watching me.”  
“Well, what do you propose I do?”  
Feli hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “Hey, Lucan lost a weird thingy a while ago I heard, maybe you should help him with that!”  
“Who?”  
“The man who runs the shop.”  
“Well… I’ll ask. I trust he’ll have a better description than ‘weird thingy.’”

Having done his job, Feli focused back on his hands, and Arthur strolled down.

 

 

“An ornament. Solid gold. About this big, it’s like a claw. It’s monetary value is secondary here, so I’ll reimburse you well if you do find it.”  
“Where do you think it might be?”  
Lucan gestured at the wall to Arthur’s right. “The mountain over there, probably. Some bandits took it and holed themselves up in that old crypt.”

“Alright. I’ll see if I can find it. Why would they take it, anyway?”  
“Don’t know. They took nothing else.”  
“Well, maybe I can find out why. Goodbye.” Arthur headed out, ready to fry some bandits.

 

“Feli, I’m off. I’ll come back in a day. I should be able to go up in that time. I’ll investigate what I can, given it’s a crypt there could be helpful information.”  
“Okie-dokie, I’ll tell Lucien! have fun and stay safe!” They waved each other off as Arthur cast a simple water-walking spell to cross the river because he was too lazy to go over the bridge upstream. Feliciano found this incredibly impressive and wondered if he could be Jesus too.

 

 

The wind tugged at his clothes, biting with the occasional cold gust. He bore against it and kept a steady march along the rocky path, and a lone tower revealed itself into view. A single man sat at the closer end of the bridge connecting it to the path. Not intimidated in the slightest by the huge battle-ax poking above his shoulder, he kept going along the path.

As expected, the man reached for the weapon. But Arthur was faster. An altered telekinesis spell for living organisms and people was lazily cast, and the man was dragged towards him, dropping the axe.

“Hey! What the fuck?” Arthur lifted his arm and the man floated a good meter off the ground.

“Put me down, asshole!”  
“Alright.” He walked over to the bridge and dangled him off.  
“H-HEY! WAIT!” Arthur lovingly tossed the man to his doom, ignoring the screaming being cut off quickly with a thud. He entered the tower to be greeted by another slightly smaller man on the middle of the stairs. “D- Don’t come any closer!”   
“Why not?”  
“I’ll kill you! I mean it!”  
“I’m sure your friend back there intended to do the same.” On that note, Arthur carried on up the stairs as the man backed away into a corner. A third person, a heavily-armoured orc lady, was waiting for him on an apparent porch. The view behind her was incredible, but she didn’t seem to happy about the situation.  
“Stupid milk-drinking babies. Scared of a single mage? Aww, let mommy help!” She said this in a very sarcastic tone towards the end and raised a huge hammer above her head. The confidence in her voice disappeared the moment that Arthur gave a single wrist-flick, sending her off the edge and to her doom. He continued up the stairs, hoping they were keeping something worthwhile up here.

Leaving the lone, traumatised bandit with 164 less gold in the chest than earlier, he continued on his merry way up the path.

 

 

 

“Hey Feliciano, where’s Arthur gone? I found another book for him to fall asleep on.”  
“Oh! I forgot to tell you, he went up that hill to help Lucan out!”  
“Who?”  
“The shopkeeper man.”  
“Oh.” She sat next to him and handed him a piece of bread. “From Delphine.”  
“I’ll have to thank her later!”

They both stared into the river, enjoying the sound of the running water despite the louder noises from the sawmill.

“Feliciano.”  
“Yeah?”  
“It’s an interesting name. Where are you from?”  
“Italy.” He stopped chewing a second later when he realised he just said that out loud.  
“Huh. Never heard of that place, but it sounds like a small village. In Cyrodiil, I’m guessing.”  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
“Used to live in Morthal, myself.”  
“Was it nice there?”  
“Not really.”  
“Oh.”

They both blissfully ignored doing any work and sat watching the water flow by. Feli chimed in a few minutes later.

“I wonder what Arthur’s doing right now.”  
“Nerd stuff, probably.”

 

 

 

An elven bandit trembled, hand over her mouth, behind a pillar, praying he didn’t see her. She had a bad feeling watching him draw near, and seeing him disembowel her friends at a flick of his hands was enough to convince her to not engage combat. Trying to supress hyperventilation, she stared into her eyelids for comfort. Both hands on her mouth, and neither trying to stop the flow of scared tears, she curled up into a ball and begged any deity listening – even daedric – to save her. Slowly but steadily the sound of footsteps approached the door to the barrow; after the sound of the door opening and closing, she fearfully peered around: no one was here to see her cower.

 

Inside, the moss and debris scattered around the room made it seem like the perfect place to hide if you didn’t care about how nice your home was. Large sculpted boulders obviously fallen from the ceiling indicated an old age, and the cobwebs pushed this point a little further. Two bandits at the other end of the large room chattered about something – Arthur didn’t really care for what they talked about, but charging a lightning bolt to jump between the both of them at the same time, he figured they weren’t too important.

They twitched a little, static still surrounding the nerves in their spines. The chest they guarded held a few coins, but nothing of note. Disregarding their twitches from incomprehensible voltage that passed and still lingered, he kept going down into the ancient barrow.

 

 

 

 

“Think fast!”  
_Splash._  
Feliciano fell forward and drifted a metre downstream before getting up again, ready to get a revenge shot for the bucket of water that had been thrown at him. Before he could grab a different bucket to soak Lucien back, Delphine cut in.  
“You two done yet?” She said, staring from the shore.

_Splash._

She was now soaking wet, courtesy of the two of them. She rolled her sleeves up and a smile grew.  
“I’ll get the both of you for that!” She grabbed a large kettle pot that was sat near the wall of the blacksmiths.

 

 

 

 

 

Surprisingly enough, an abandoned barrow home only to various micro-organisms is pretty boring after a while. So hearing a desperate voice from within was the most intriguing thing he had encountered so far.

The man yelled some names, asking if Arthur was any of them.

“Oh Mara, it’s coming again!”

He turned a corner and the largest spider he had ever imagined dropped three metres in front of him.

The entire room burst into flames.

 

The captive struggled, now for a different reason. “Ow, ow ow, that was a lot of fire! You nearly set me on fire!”  
Still stood with a horrified look on his face, Arthur turned towards the voice. Embers settled in the corners of the room. But his sarcasm instincts were still around.

“So next time I’ll let it eat you then.”  
“Alright, alright, fine, you saved my skin. But I’m going to die anyway in here! Get me down! I’ll share the treasure this place holds with you!”

The latent human instinct of greed kicked in. “Treasure?”  
“Yes! I have the answers to opening it up! But I’m still trapped here! It’s all yours if you cut me down!”

With such a generous offer, he bounced over and charged some more fire.  
“W-Watch the fire!”   
Ignoring his begging, Arthur fried the cobwebs that ensnared him.

“Well, lead me to the treasure.” Pretty predictably for someone who placed such a hasty demand, the stranger’s face turned to one that reeked of [lies](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/ToddHoward2010sm.jpg/220px-ToddHoward2010sm.jpg).

“Ha, you gullible fool, I’m not sharing with a-“   
By the time he looked up, Arthur was already enveloping his hand in flame

 

 

 

 

 

“Those there, I see them as like, a big cooking pan!” Feli jabbed a finger at the night sky, not really helpful in deciphering which he meant.  
“Oh. That’s cool. Say, what do you think stars are made of?”  
“Hydrogen, mainly.”  
“What?” She only half heard him, since Lucien had never heard that word in her life.  
“Uh, nothing.”  
“Well, I think they’re like, eyes! The eyes of the Gods. They watch us all from heaven through the stars.” Feliciano hummed acknowledgement as a memory of pre-science Earth and stars just being dots drifted around his mind.

The wind pitifully tickled the tree they lay under.

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s _more!”_

Despite technically being the captive here, he sheltered behind Arthur as he uneventfully shot a few spears of ice into the faces of the skeleton-zombie things. They grunted a last grunt as they flew away, typically dropping whatever weapon they held at the time.

“Oh, nice axe.” Unlike his captive, these guys didn’t really elicit much fear. Arthur plundered the axe from the fallen skeleton. It was green, grey, and reeked of age.

 

 

 

 

 

They weren’t awake to be uncomfortable at the tickle of some bugs crawling on their clothes. Now a little less pathetic, the wind stirred the grass and trees alike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I- I really don’t know! I don’t, I promise!”  
“You really don’t?”  
“No! Please, don’t kill me!”

He writhed, misunderstanding why he was asked this.

“Because it’s pretty obvious.”  
“Please- uh?”  
“Look at the markings. On the claw and the door.”

His captor gave an indifferent look as something stirred in his brain, disrupting some dust.

Not waiting for the man to try and redeem himself for a blunder like that, he began fiddling with the rings. Some sliding later, and he impassively shoved the claws into the holes.

The door lowered far more louder than necessary, and the sting of the darts from failed attempts both went ignored and also got more painful from embarrassment.

 

Some walking later, Arthur was getting pretty regretful about the decision to keep this pack mule with him. For a man who was being threatened with his life at stake, he sure liked to ramble.

“And this idiot, he doesn’t even see the fifth person so far pull a card out their boot! Everyone else isn’t even playing to win at this point, we just want to see if this man is even noticing the table! We aren’t even sure if he even knows the rules. But-“   
“Hey, can you do me a favour?”  
“Um, alright. What is it?” The reminder that he wasn’t the captor here stopped him from expressing too much disdain for being interrupted.  
“I just want to test a spell. Stay still. It won’t hurt.” _If I cast it right_

He looked visibly perturbed, given how all the magic he saw so far had been for blasting things to kingdom come. And he naturally winced as he closed his eyes, felt a flash, and it took a minute for his eyes to reopen.

“Say something.” The man opened his mouth, and quickly went from confusion to even deeper fear when no noise came out. He begun to panic and mouth obscenities.

“Hey, it worked. Let’s carry on.” Shaking still, he obeyed.

 

“Is that part of the wall glowing?” Not expecting an answer from the shaken man, he approached the glow. Some sort of language glowed softly at him.

Not learning from past hubris, the magically gagged man snooped around an altar, grabbing what he could to hide and sell later.

The glowing got bigger, for Arthur at least, and he was so fascinated that he didn’t hear the coffin open up. The other man did, however.

Wordless screaming is pretty useless. The whole point of screaming is that it is a natural reflex to alert nearly allies that danger has appeared very suddenly. Volume is required; upon hearing yelling, the allies would likely turn around very fast, and help fight off the annoyed predator. Being so vocal and having a full language of words meant humans were particularly good at living, killing the animals bigger than it, and then taking over the world to disrupt all life and drive everyone, including themselves, to extinction.

He had about half a second to reflect on a quarter of that before his life was abruptly ended with a huge axe to the middle of the head.

Meanwhile, Arthur squinted as the words seemed to bombard him, and he wondered if this was magic or some sort of cave-poison-induced drug trip.

Finally, the glowing stopped being so loud, and he could see other things again. Namely, he could see a figure walking towards him.

“Find anything? I’m going to note these patterns down, grab-“  
Startling the absolute shit out of him, the figure yelled something like FOOS so loud that he went flying back, and landed ungracefully on his side.

The adrenalin from a now broken arm cleared his eyes, and another weird skeleton guy but this time with more gear stood above him and raised a very large axe. A single drop of blood left on the head dripped to the floor between them.

The axe suddenly started down, but a blast of nothingness sent it flying off again, wielder following.

Every swear word in the english language bubbled from his mouth like an incantation to kill elderly ladies listening nearby. By the time the bony figure begun to stand, he was already approaching obscure words so obscure that they hadn’t even been in common use on earth for a few hundred years.

“ _Bacraut,_ fucking _argr-gaugbrojotr-_ “ Not understanding a single word of this, or caring, the little shit grabbed his axe again.

“FUCK _OFF!_ ”

 

 

 

On the top of the hill, a resting hunter skinned a doe. This part of the forest had become a home over the years, feeding him plenty, even enough to sell bits in Whiterun for some gold to buy things he couldn’t or didn’t want to make himself.

The ground suddenly tremored a little, making a few birds fly off the tree they perched on.

He stopped, mid-slice, and stared at the empty mead bottle.

 

 

 

 

Static clung to his hair, and even the rotting dead-alive corpse – now fully dead – twitched erratically, despite very little nerve endings remaining to be twitched. The entire cave was covered in burns, but not from fire. A last few bits of lightning zipped around his hands.

He realised something.

“Shit.”

Arthur pilfered his own pockets, to get an inventory. Impressively, being the eye of the storm kept his well preserved, and thankfully the papers and charcoal he brought to take notes of anything interested remained unused but intact. He sighed in relief. Some simple healing magic flowed to his throbbing arm.

 

 

Satisfied with the rubbing of the pattern that he gave up trying to write accurately, he was at the last leg of the hike. Fresh air hovered in front. The money and jewels he took from the chest jingled a little in their pocket.

The cave ended narrow, and on an overhang of a hill looking over the river.

He stood, wanting the wind of the dark night to dramatically tug his clothes and still slightly statically-charged hair, but it was busy fooling with a pile of leaves downhill.

 

 

 

Nearly the exact same place he left Feliciano, he was snoring peacefully in the middle of morning-dew covered grass. The uncomfortable position didn’t look quiet so peaceful, but the loud snoring disagreed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Again! Pelagius, are you sensing that? Of course, you aren’t, my dear homicidal king, you’re dead. And not a daedric prince. IF you were, which you only could WISH you were, you’d be feeling whoever that mortal is ripping apart some fabric of the Aubris! Mannimarco would be jealous. And maybe even dead. Again. Surprising that the aedra haven’t done anything yet.” The wide, sharp-tooth smile looked pretty twisted already, and a lack of iris or pupils drove this point home.

Unentertained, he bit into a strawberry torte. His host continued talking anyway.

“Oh, I do just LOVE when mortals get this powerful! No idea where they came from. You’d think there’d be a little build up. But this guy, they wake up one day and just can bend reality!”

Still saying nothing, Pelagius took another bite. The torte was nearly depleted.

“Well. Haskill. HASKILL! Haskill, I have a job! For you!” Somehow looking even less entertained than Pelagius, he popped into reality next to his master.

“And just _what_ would my lord require?” His voice outdid his facial expression on how far a person could be fed up.

“You’ve got a mortal to track down!”


	5. Chapter 5

He was incredibly stiff and cold-jointed, but still felt the peace of the world slowly waking him up with the bustle of the town.

Still in the same position he woke in, he considered closing his eyes again despite the fact he would remain on the floor. The air was still, fresh, and the cold bite was healed by the sun.

To his right, the still-smoothed grass indicated Lucien was up; albeit only just. A small rumble of hunger gave him a lone motive to actually get up. Before he did, however, Arthur appeared in the patch of sky he was looking up at.  
“Hey, I need to ask something.” He looked down, stood next to his head, not expecting an immediate answer from the half-asleep man.  
“mmmWhaddis it?”  
“I found a weird pattern. Last night, at the barrow. Lucan gave me money for finding the claw but apparently these patterns did nothing when he saw them.”  
“Patterns?”  
“Yes. Here, look. Maybe it’ll happen to you.” More confused than worried, he tried to squint as a charcoal rubbing was brought into view next to Arthur’s head. And, increasing worry and a little confusion, it glowed angrily blue.  
“WHAT? HEY HEY WOAH-“ Feliciano’s arms shot up to protect his head from the weird warping he was seeing of the light being throw at him like money at a stripper. “Woah, woah, woah, stop the- hey- what-“ His vision went a little blurrier before clearing up again, showing nothing but a not glowing charcoal rubbing of some weird scratch-mark looking patterns. His mouth was still open for yelling things, but now silent that the entire thing was gone.  
“I’m guessing, by that reaction, you saw that too?”  
“Don’t do that to me without warning! What sort of magic is that?”  
Arthur beamed. “No clue! It doesn’t even have any sort of magical aura! And no one else is seeing it.”  
“Oh. Who else did you test it on?”  
“Showed it to Lucan. He was confused at why I was concerned over it. But I felt something weird after it, like I knew what it said. Some zombie-skeleton thing said the same word and sent me flying.”  
“What? Skeleton-zombie? Words?” Feli was too tired for this new information to be popping up all at once. Even with a proper night’s sleep, it’d still confuse him somewhat, but that didn’t really help.  
“Yes. What do you think it says?”  
Feliciano stammered over himself, utterly bewildered. “Uh, um, four? Fruit? Foos?”  
“Exactly! Fus! I think this might mean something.”  
“Arthur, you found a weird pattern that glows and think it’s some language?” He tried to stand up, wiping some sleep from his eyes.  
“The rest of the wall was covered in similar patterns, like a language. I think this could be important.”  
“I think we’ve both had a little too much to drink the past few days.” A little disappointed, but not entirely disagreeing, Arthur huffed in some sort of agreement.

 

 

“So, you find anything interesting?” Lucien didn’t look up from the salmon she was cutting up.  
“Just this.” Arthur dangled the paper next to her and she squinted at it.  
“A… piece of paper?”  
“Well, me and Feliciano saw something weirder, but I’m beginning to think it could be the circumstances of our…” For a second he saw the thousands of other universes fly past him again. “Arrival.”  
“Oh. Well, what’s the plan now?” Lucien was pretty tired of Riverwood. It had charms but got pretty boring fast. The river was nice, but there wasn’t much to do between an inn and a blacksmith.  
“Well, I give Delphine some money for the stay, and we make the way to Winterhold.”  
“Sounds like a plan, except the money part.”  
“I found enough in that barrow, plus what the storekeeper gave me for retrieving that ornament. I’ll cover you, since you’re helping us.”  
“Oh, thanks!”

 

 

“I thought you said twenty gold for each of us.” Arthur expressed confusion with his large eyebrows.  
“Yeah, but Feliciano helped me out around the inn and was generally a nice guy. He stayed free. Just you and the girl, forty will cover it all, since you weren’t even around for a day.”  
Feliciano looked up from the paper. “Oh, thank you Delphine!” He was staring at the pattern to see if it did anything again, partially from curiosity and partially because there wasn’t much else to do while the others did formalities. She stared at the paper for a second.  
“Hey, what’s that?”  
“Just some weird pattern Arthur found. He wanted to study it.” He turned it around to reveal the weird glowing alien word, leaving out the fact both he and Arthur saw it glowing for some reason.  
“Any reason?” Innocent curiosity masked her sudden realisation that Arthur was studying the dragon tongue – an area she had limited knowledge in, but a lot of relevancy to.  
“Oh, he was just… curious!” Just flat out admitting they both thought they were going insane wasn’t the best idea, but he wasn’t so great of a liar.

“Well, it’s been good. Thanks, Delphine.”  
“Safe travels.”  
And with that, the three of them left, not noticing her staring intently.

“We have a while to go. Stopping off at some major cities would be ideal. Whiterun isn’t too far away. From there we could always just hire a carriage the rest of the way. Would be far easier. I think it costs more for somewhere remote like Winterhold, though.” Lucien was acutely aware of their funds running pretty low.  
“When we get to Whiterun, I could sell some of these trinkets I found in that barrow.” Arthur grabbed a single emerald from his pocket and showed in to the light.  
“Ohh, but it’s so pretty! I want it!” Feliciano was apparently one for keepsakes, even from other universes.  
“Okay, I do have other ones that I will sell though. Here.” Arthur put the glimmering gem into Feli’s cupped hands. “Thank you!”

 

 

 

The flowers from this world were, naturally, different, and he stood before a small patch of purple flowers, four long petals each and a purple-to-white tint. He bowed down to pick a long and large one, deeply coloured with the rich purple. He twisted it between his fingers for a second.

_“What was your plan for coming back?” “There was none.”_ A few days ago, this was just an offhand comment he forgot about after an hour. But he remembered it earlier that day, replaying it in his mind. The way he immediately changed the subject. Portals to entire other universes weren’t the sort of thing you left a recall procedure to last.

“Feliciano, you get distracted so easily.” Arthur called back to him, still walking down the road.  
“I was getting this for you!” He jogged up and handed over the flower he found.  
“O- Oh, thank you Feli…” He stared down at the dark purple mingling with the lighter petal borders.

 

 

The sun was beginning to set, casting long and distinctive shadows across the whole land. The walk had been slightly less tiring with Feliciano constantly talking, bringing up his spirits, but Lucien looked pretty indifferent.

There was the sound of running, approaching quickly behind them. Arthur was the first to notice, and spun around.

A greyed woman, dressed in only tattered rags with no shoes, was staring at him with beaming eyes. And was still running. “You! Yes, _you,_ my dear! You, you look like a mage! Don’t you just! I can see it! And feel it! And _taste_ it! The others do a bit, but it’s _you,_ isn’t it? YOU are the one! It’s YOU! Aren’t you!”

Utterly lost, Arthur barely even knew how to begin to reply. But she carried on, taking his confused silence as a que to continue yelling. Feliciano and Lucien turned also, glancing at everyone else.

“Yes! Oh, I hope my lord is happy! I hope he’s happy! Me and Dervenin both will go home at last! You see, mage, my lord has been looking for you! But he’s on vacation. And he has been, for so long, but now from his chamberlain himself, orders to find you! I’m sure he’ll bring us back to New Sheoth for this, oh yes he _will!_ ” Lucien decided to try and stop this mess.

“Hey, what in the name of oblivion are you on about?!”

“I’m not talking to the apprentice, I’m talking to _you,_ mage!” Arthur reeled a little, looking to his two companions for support.

“Who is your lord then?” Feliciano took the initiative and tried to make sense of this.

“My lord? He is a great God, but one rarely worshipped! He is the two halves of your very mind! All know him, but few can name him.” She turned to the sky, and her voice raised. “Sheogorath! My lord, I have found the mage! I have found the mysterious mage you were seeking!” Not waiting for her to finish her insanity, a bolt of magic shot her in the torso while she looked up. The haggard old woman ungracefully fell to the floor unconscious.

Arthur broke the silence.  
“What the fresh fuck was that about?”

They looked at each other.

“Ah, she was tasked with finding you. Which she did. I could hardly scour this whole miserable continent by myself, so I gathered a few to help. She was attuned to your powerful magic presence. You really didn’t try to be subtle. Really, you’d think you were boasting.” A bored, monotone, tired, and endlessly fed up voice came from behind them.

Arthur was more confused than startled this time. “Excuse me?” he said.

“Yes, excuse you. Take a hint, please, you’re the one my lord wishes to see. And see him you will.”  
“I’m not going anywhere!” Not even waiting for a response, another similar bolt shot at the dapper man.

It sailed through him aimlessly, putting a tree behind him unconscious.

“Are you quite done yet? And don’t even bother with that axe, it’ll pass through me too. I’ve dealt with far more aggressive mortals. I know the routine.” Feliciano looked for a second. “Where did you even get that axe?”

“I got it from that barrow place. But my point remains. I won’t be dragged anywhere. I’m going to Winterhold, for the mage’s college, and I will stick to that plan.” Arthur said.

“Oh, _really?_ To study the snow? Maybe even learn a bit of magic if you really dare? Please, wasting a hike that long sounds even more boring than having to fetch some uncooperative mortal. The most interesting thing of note they have done in the last century was accidentally summon my lord. He had a wonderful time messing around. A rather short one, too. There was nothing to mess around _with._ Which is pretty impressive, given his talent for finding things to mess with. From what remains at that place, you’d probably have a better chance of having an education on the arcane arts in Skyrim if you were to set up a college yourself. And teaching would be more productive if you taught the local squirrels, too. They have a slight knack for such things.”

“So, why does your lord want to speak to me?” Arthur was becoming more and more curious, and if the college proved useless then he would be out of plans anyway.  
“Well, he sensed your rather messy spellcasting that was powerful enough for him to notice. After some poking, he noticed a small hole in the world that had traces left of your fall. And his,” he said, gesturing vaguely at Feliciano, “but you’re the one casting things powerful enough to shake the fabric of the world. He is a very curious being by nature.”

Lucien spoke up. “Wait, wait, a small hole in the world from their fall? What does that mean? I think I’m missing some information here.” The darkly dressed man continued, still bored and monotone in his voice.

“You weren’t with them, were you? You’re a local to this plane of existence. They both aren’t. Look at them. Weird eyebrows, weird hair flick that defies logic, even a mortal like you should notice _something_ off with the two of them.” They both took a slight offense but were more concerned with the fact this man _knew._

“He’s in Solitude. Since you don’t seem to have great funds, have this. Get a carriage or something. Or just throw the coins into a river and run the whole way while being chased by wolves, I don’t really care. Either way, if you get to Solitude, he has some fun things for you. He’s in the Pelagius wing of the palace. Now, off you trot, hopefully not to Winterhold since that will annoy everyone involved. Careful not to fall out of this world too.” And as fast as the stranger appeared, the man vanished, leaving nothing but a moderately sized bag of what presumably was money.

 

“I know he was some sort of apparition, or whatever, but what was that part about you two being from another realm? Are you… daedra? What did he mean by that?” Lucien was still a little taken aback, asking things mainly on autopilot.

“Well, the bloody secret’s out then, I fucking guess.”

 

 

 

 

The sun was long gone, and the stars were getting crisper where they weren’t obscured by the occasional cloud.

“Really. It was just a blunder. I’m a mage, and, well, some things happen. I wasn’t about to let Feliciano fall into another world.”  
“Is that actually your names? Feliciano and Arthur? Or are those cover names? They do sound a little unorthodox, but not ‘another world’ level of weird.”

The two looked at each other.

“Technically yes, technically no. It’s a… novel situation. My name is Italy, his is England. But even in our world, those names are a secret.”  
“Didn’t you say you came from Italy earlier?”  
“Yeah. It’s a weird situation.”

The quiet nothingness interrupted by the occasional bug noise surrounded the three of them as they sat on the roadside, to varying amounts of comfort.

 

“Well, since my plans sound pretty stupid now, I may as well just head home. Once we get to Whiterun, I’ll be off home, and see about doing my own studying. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind and go up there anyway. But for now, I think home sounds good.”  
“Home sounds incredible right now.” Arthur said this in a tone more annoyed with the situation than worried; overall, not much different to Lucien’s tone.

Feliciano noticed again how he apparently didn’t plan how to come back in the first place, and how that even in an alien and backwards world he still didn’t seem too intent on coming back.

“Did you plan on coming back?”

Feliciano was silently waiting for an answer if any, Lucien was silently not understanding the situation, and Arthur was silent.

He stared into a tree for a minute, and after an awkward silence stood up again.

“We should get to Whiterun.”

The walk was pretty quiet, and incredibly awkward.


	6. Chapter 6

The ride up to Solitude had been, as the name suggests, mostly solitary. One less person that before, Feliciano and Arthur had both constantly fallen asleep – much to the amusement of the carriage driver. Not much had plagued them, but out of the three groups of bandits and four packs of wolves and even a bear, they had all fallen in moments when Arthur decided he had enough and caused no problems for anyone else on board.

After selling various trinkets and baubles he recovered from that long-abandoned burrow, he was generous enough (with the help of Feli) to give Lucien a handsome sum to get her home too, and to ensure she had at least a few funds elsewhere.

 

“You two, you awake? We’re here.”

They both stirred at different frequencies, Arthur’s considerably lower than Feliciano’s.   
“Hey, wake up.”  
“We’re awake, give us a moment.” Arthur grumbled. He poked Feli.  
“Hey. Wake up.” He gave a tired moan in response.  
“I’ll drag you up there if I have to.”  
“Then do it.” Brown hair went back to covering his face as he begun to nod off again.

Arthur sighed resignedly. “I’ll just drag him up. Thanks for a ride. Have a tip.” He placed another thirty coins in the drivers hands, more than the original price of the trip, because he felt generous and wouldn’t really need this money for much.

 

A guard got more and more suspicious of him as he grew closer, dragging what looked more and more like a body behind him. At the vital tipping point, he decided to approach.  
“Alright, what’s the business here?”  
“He’s tired.”

The lump he was dragging said something along the lines of ‘long trip.’

“Oh. I, uh, thought he was, uh…”  
“Dead?”  
“H- yeah, is he okay then?”  
“He has a debilitating illness called ‘lazy’.”  
“Ahaha, I understand how that is.” He internally took that back when he stared down at the splayed man doing his best impression of a dead body.

 

“Oh shit, another execution.” Arthur dropped the leg he was using to drag him along.  
“What?” Somehow now full of energy, he rose to his feet and looked around.  
“Not for us, idiot.”  
“Oh.”  
“I’m watching.”  
“I’m not.”  
“Well, make yourself useful. Go see if you can find a way into the ‘pelagius wing’ or whatever in the palace. It shouldn’t be too hard to miss a palace, right?”  
“Okie-dokie!” Feliciano shot off before the soon-to-be-executed could plead for why he was in the right.

 

 

 

“Anything that wasn’t just being decapitated?”  
“Nah, pretty boring for an execution.” Feliciano winced at the idea of finding an execution boring versus entertaining.  
“… Well, I got a key.”  
“What? I meant like, sneak around and stuff. How did you do it that fast?”  
“I asked, Arthur.”

“Oh.”

They walked back up the path to go to the palace. While Arthur was mostly indifferent to the whole thing, Feliciano was far more anxious and his eyes darting around so much probably would have made a guard arrest him on suspicion if he just wasn’t so cute

“Hey, this architecture makes me think of your place.” Arthur said.  
“Well, Riverwood made me think of your place!” Feliciano laughed at his own teasing, but Arthur was actually a little hurt and pretended to laugh.

Inside was murky, unwelcoming, and smelt vaguely of rotten fish – much like a modern day parliament.  
“This door, here!” Feli trotted over merrily and gingerly pushed the key into the small lock opening.

“You ready?”   
“As I’ll ever be for meeting some sort of god.” Arthur responded flatly.

The door opened slowly.

 

If a god really lived here, they could’ve at least tidied up a little. Cobwebs and long forgotten bottles and mugs appeared to have exploded around the room.

“It is a little chilly in here. Not too bad, though.”  
Feliciano didn’t let Arthur see him shiver. “Yeah, not too bad.”

It was incredibly filthy. Even if it was allegedly owned by some entity of worship, they could’ve swept occasionally. Even Arthur kept the haunted labyrinth of Buckingham Palace clean.

“Not really what I was expecting.” Hearing this, Feli suddenly wondered what gods Arthur encountered before.

 

 

 

“You sure they gave you the key to the right place? I know you think it’s a prank at most, but trust me, palaces keep some weird things around. This is pretty tame for what’s back at Buck- “

“-ingham- Palace…?”

A second ago, Feli was complaining about how more spiderwebs were appearing. But suddenly, they had all vanished. With the whole building, too. They stood in some apparent countryside, like a couple of crackheads who just woke up in a field trying to remember what happened.

 

“Oh, how I love when the fabric of reality gets messed up! It’s so fun to watch all the Aedra tumble over each other try’na fix it before us Daedra mess around with it. And you’re a walking reality-fabric-messer-upper! So I think we can help each other.” The man sat facing away from the two miscreants ate indifferently to the yelling grandpa in front of him. He had long gotten fed up of the tortes and had decided to see how long he could eat honey nut treats before he grew disgusted with them. He was already further in than he had gotten with the tortes.

“Where are we?”  
“I’d call that a redundant question, but really, given your line of work it’s probably a smart one. Inside the mind of this fella right here.”  
“What does he mean by that?”  
“Feliciano, he obviously means in the mindscape of the guy eating the honey kebab things.”  
“Feliciano, eh? Names from other universes are interesting. Right now, you should go clean up this man’s psyche, catch!” A staff materialised from absolutely nothing. “in the meantime, I’ll be discussing how you two get home. Chop chop!” While being waved off by grandpa, he looked meekly to Arthur for an idea of what to do; he just made an ‘I don’t know’ face and nodded slightly in the direction of where this guy wanted him to go.

“So, you fall into another universe. But you have no ties back! That seems a little flawed. Here, sit, eat a sweetroll. Or don’t. Your choice. But sit! Really, magic between other worlds is pretty advanced, it requires much expertise and… bah, you already know this beginning stuff, you did this yourself. So you’ll know what I mean when I say your lack of a cord is a little worrying?”  
“… Yeah.”  
“And how hard it is to go back the other way specifically?”  
“Yes, given different natures of universes and how difficult it is to aim, even WITH the same magic nature you know.”  
“Ah! So you’re well-rehearsed. Either that, or this whole thing is just a string of you pretending to be competent while accidentally looking like it.”  
Arthur laughed, the first non-tentative noise he had made since arriving. “Please, all good studiers grow out of that stage after a hundred years or so.” Clamouring at their own jokes, they shared a few more bits of witty banter exclusive to powerful magic beings older than 600 years.

 

 

What the fuck was this thing?

Why did it glow red?

How is he firing these bolts?

Where the hell was he?

What was Arthur planning to do?

Why does this man only have underwear on?

More and more questions along these lines haunted him, much like how these apparent ‘Aspects of Pelagius’ mind’ plagued the man himself in the centre. It was getting pretty boring, just firing these randomly and hoping for the best. He wasn’t sure whether grandpa’s voice was coming from his own head or the fog. His anxiety grew.

 

 

 

“Yes, transmutation is fun and all, but really, it’s far more straight forward to apply to summoning. Well, not in a fight.”  
“Yeah, it really is embarrassing when mages summon demon after demon after DEMON, not just reforming their enemies into dust.” Arthur nodded, relating to this incredibly niche group of people who had seen enough summoner fights to critique them.  
“But, ah, we’ve been nattering for long enough! Now, let’s talk _universes!_ ” Sheogorath, having already introduced himself as the daedric prince of madness and ‘sometimes callipers too’, leant back in his chair from the wild ravings they had shared.

“I suppose you want a price for information?”  
“Me? Oh, no. Not now. You would be far more valuable as an ally. As would I. Now though, I offer something different. How about an alliance? We could form a bridge between worlds, help each other out in pickles, maybe do some knitting every week.”

Feliciano felt as air went from refreshingly nippy to bitingly harsh cold.

“Together, we could take on a whole world, couldn’t we?” The aspect felt like someone offering you heroin after you wake up in a field on a comedown from crack. Arthur’s eyes darted, worrying that Feliciano had seen how alluring that statement was to him.  
“But, ah, that can wait. Can’t take over the world if it doesn’t exist. So how about you help yourself home, help me out, and help yourself to some of this world we could own?” Distantly, Feliciano uselessly blasted some atronarchs with the staff, to no avail so far. Boredom was quickly overcoming the fear. At this moment, avarice was overcoming apprehension for Arthur. He couldn’t help but smile, so he grinned widely anyway.

“Sounds like a plan.”  
“Y’see, this world’s got a little problem. You knocked the world-eater out of place in the currents of time with yer fall. He was going to fall anyway, nothing bad, but he isn’t called ‘world eater’ for nothing. There’s no mortals to play around with if there aren’t any mortals. This is where my idea comes into play.”

 

 

 

Finally, realising the various loopholes on how to proceed, all three zones of the mindscape were free from torment. Walking back into the first clearing, Feliciano saw that they were both engaged with each other, discussing things with their elbows on the table.  
“Ah, Feli! We were discussing things.” This did not reassure the Italian at all.  
“Yes! Me and Arthur have been getting along _stunningly!_ I’ll help make a portal back to your world, and us two can natter about stuff.”  
“Wait, wait, you have a way home already?” Feliciano stared, agape, at the pleased lack of worry they both had.  
“Yes, Sheogorath will help me set up a portal home, and I’ll help keep his home universe alive for longer. We both win.”

He turned away briskly. The blond had struck a deal so fast, so cunningly. Somehow, he was already getting them home. He bent universes into where he wanted them – and bent them back for his own pleasure after. “You can get us home?”  
“Yes.” Arthur’s response was flat with confidence. “First, we’ll pay a visit to his sub-universal pocket dimension.” These words did not make sense to Feliciano in that order.

 

 

 

This universe apparently loved palaces, since he was waiting for the magic old duo to finish their stuff while waiting idly, bored, in the hall of yet another grand hall of a palace.

“Oh! A visitor! Care to join a small feast? We’re going to have some greenmote, and I think I shall recite my latest soliloquy.” A strange man, with an even stranger hat, beckoned him from a doorway. Feliciano hardly had anything else to do.   
“Sounds good! What’s greenmote?” Feliciano asked.  
“Oh, you’ve never had any? Well, today is your lucky day!” The man grinned pleasantly, radiating a sense of homeliness, so he trusted the man and walked off into the next room with him.

 

 

 

“This is it, as soon at this final ingredient _touches_ the bottom of the basin, we’re going to have company.” They had worked for a considerable length of time, and they were nearly ready to call forth the world-eater himself.   
“Well, I’m ready as ever. Put it in, I hardly have all day! Well, I do. Little immortality joke.” Sheogorath and Arthur looked at each other. A single eyeball, held by a bloodied hand, dropped into the silver dish in the middle. The air distorted and they both stepped back. A familiar voice echoed its presence before anything could be seen.

“Greetings once again, _rah-joor_. What a quaint little trap you’ve tried. But it cannot contain me. You both have made a mistake in trying to outwit one who rides the currents of time. You interest me though, such power… we should fight. I would love to see how much damage you and a daedric prince could do to me.” The three of them braced themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Author note: hi guys! Just wanted to let you all know that im eating a lasagne right now and it’s really good. If you don’t like lasagne then im sorry for you. It must be hard living with bitchitis. I hope you get better soon because these shits slap

 

 

 

To be fair, the man hadn’t actually claimed greenmote _wasn’t_ a drug. But some form of warning would have been nice, seeing as he had no way to tell prior to ingesting a considerable amount. He took the people telling him to not have much as a sign the taste was overpowering, but he loved exploring new foods and couldn’t help himself. But now he was beginning to regret that, and also beginning to regret letting all the bees into his eyeballs. He was down in the middle of the town, walking aimlessly, but from his point of view he was incredibly lost because the walls wouldn’t stop moving and morphing.

A goat begun talking to him.

“Fimmion want su-weeeeet-roll.” Even sober, this was a baffling sentence to open a dialogue with. “You. You have trinkets. Shiny, _shiny_ trinkets. But not sweetroll. Idea – we go to the bakery, and give him the shiny useless trinkets, and we get ourselves sweetrolls. You like?” Feliciano’s mouth was open for no reason whatsoever for the last few minutes, frozen, but it finally moved as he processed a little of what was being said. Sweet good. Sharing good. Idea good. “I _do_ like!” he told the goat.

 

 

 

 

“Oh, don’t even get me _started_ on Mara. All her damnable weeping, and she thinks she’s some sort of mother. I’m the firstborn of _Akatosh,_ not her. I have never heard of any other dragons even purposefully going near her temples. I certainly haven’t. Her temples are in that condition because she is far too soft. She would blame my kind for stubbing her toe.” Alduin tucked his wings in politely, and Sheogorath continued from his point.  
“Yeah! Mara needs far more violence. No one is scared of her, so no one will worship her, it’s simple really.”  
“I’m not even a local to this universe, but all I’ve heard about her screams that she’s a huge softie. Just how are you meant to get mortal worshippers by skipping the killing?” All three of them agreed with each other.

“Well, our universe is going to have PLENTY of killings. The three of us could even appear in person and demand entrails! Sounds delightful. There’s plenty of unwatched worlds out there ripe for the taking. All we have to do is find one that tickles our fancy and move in.” said Sheogorath.

“This sounds lovely. We have some decent plans. I’ll get my friend back to his home world, then we can pop out and go shopping for some nice conquerable worlds. Let’s get this tether running, and we can begin.” Arthur clasped his hands together eagerly.  
“You go get Feliciano, it’s nearly done here. I think he went down into the bakery.”

 

 

 

 

When he heard bakery, he was expecting to find him doing something, anything, more wholesome than rocking on the ground eating sweetrolls with a friend like two cannibals desecrating a corpse.

“Well, he more than paid for them. Gave me quite a few little trinkets. Nearly handed me the last little emerald he had but panicked and kept hold of it. He was fairly courteous, given most people in this city.” Arthur thanked him for baby sitting Feli, and began dragging him up the steps to the palace again. Fimmion barely noticed as he was waved off and called a ‘very sweet goat’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was far less paper around the room than the last time he had walked in here. The news silently played, and it reminded him that he had missed the most recent episode of his favourite reality shows. Then, it reminded him that last he checked, he was stranded in a universe far behind this technology. He would’ve jolted upright, but his head was far too foggy to move that fast, or really move at all. Arthur’s room was cosy, despite still being messy somewhat.

“Ah, you woke up. Tea?” said Arthur, looking from the kitchen.  
“What? What happened?”  
“I got us home, and made a couple of friends. They helped. Do you want tea?”  
“Oh, uh, yes, please!”

 

 

“No, we’re fine. It was- yeah, I know, I’m sorry- England’s fine, so am I. Okay. Okay, I’m coming over now then.” Seeing his phone full of so many worried messages made him feel guilty, so his first priority was going back to Germany’s place and throwing some reassurance around.

“Okay, I’m off to Germany’s place. Bye Arthur!” he waved with one hand, and turned the precious gem over in his pocket with the other. “And if you need help, or just want someone to talk to…” the brit’s apparent plan to never come back stewed in his mind still, “then I’m always around!”

“Thank you!”

Feli didn’t notice that he had made two extra cups of tea.

The empty one sat in the sink while he took the other three downstairs on a small blue tray, back to the room where another portal was glowing – this time against the wall, and reeking of more stability.

“Got some tea.” He placed the tray on the table and sat with his two guests. It was pretty hard to drink from a mug or fit in a cellar when you are a dragon, but Alduin didn’t seem to mind.

“So, fellows, got any good leads?”  
“Oh, yes. A few. Very nice ones.” Sheogorath rubbed his hands together excitedly. “My beard, Alduin’s scales, and your eyebrows, a perfect team for taking over some new worlds!” They all shared a both hearty and evil laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! love u all! when i posted chapter 1, i still didnt know what the plot was. but it was fun to do this!

**Author's Note:**

> i am the funniest person on earth
> 
> yes this will be continued


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